How Obama Tackled the Race Issue

During the last presidental campaign, Obama managed to avoid talking about race for a very long time. That was until the media found out that he had been attending the church of the controversial minister Jeremiah Wright. In this video, by THNKR, different speechwriters who has worked for presidents (you didn't think they write their own speeches?) analyzes the speech Obama gave as an answer to the critique. This may sound boring, but trust me: if you like to learn how to use words as a weapon, you want to watch this! You can learn A LOT. Notice the different parts of the speech, emphasized by the green headlines.

Exotic Pets

Do you remember we watched Christian the Lion? I think that may have been in the C-class. we found it interesting that you could actually go into Harrods and buy a lion. Well, it turns out that exotic pets were not that uncommon back in the days! Check it out!

Many of the people you see here are famous movie stars or artists, Google them!

History of English: Shakespeare

A quite funny little video about what Shakespeare has meant for Britain and the English language. It is made for the Open University, and is part three of a series called The History of English. SO useful for you!!

The burning house

I came across this art project a while ago, and have been thinking about it a few times since. I want to share this with you. Here is a description:

The idea is that although we spent so much money on material things, what we would take with us if the house started burning are not the most expensive stuff we own, but small things with a lot of affectionate value. Even though these are just picture of things, it somehow seems very personal and private. I really like it, and it makes me think what my pic would look like. If any of you would like to share your pic, I'll be more than happy to post it on this post!

See the pics here.

Where Children Sleep and Learn - James Mollison

I would like to introduce you to a very interesting photographer called James Mollison. There are two very interesting exhibitions/books I would like to show you. The first one is called "Where Children Sleep", and is a documentation of children and their beds all across the world.

The other one is called How Children Learn, and that is pictures from classrooms. I find these pictures really fascinating and thought provoking. Seeing them all at once really brings out the contrasts.

Elizabeth - The Movie

Here is a good movie tip from me. In 1998 a very good film was made about Elizabeth 1, who reigned at Shakespeare's time. It is really very good, and give you great insight into Britain in the 16th century. In 2005 a sequel was made "The Golden Age", which I actually haven't seen - I will have to now! Let me know if you watch any of them!

Watch the trailers here and here.

What Light Through Yonder Window Breaks

We have now started to explore the wonderful world of Shakespeare (whoever he was..) and we will only have time to show you some of it, but I hope you will continue to read and watch his works for the rest of your lives. One of the fun things about classical plays is that you can see them many times with different directors, at the theater or films and compare and contrast them. In week 39 we will see a modern version of Romeo and Juliet, so I wanted to show you a more traditional version as well.

In the clip above you will see the director Zefferelli's version of "The Balcony Scene", that we will read  in class. What do you think?

What's up with Broadway?

1.

2.

If you look at a map of Manhattan, NYC, you will notice that all the streets are planned in a grid. The streets are planned in straight lines. The ones going from the top of the map in the pic are the avenues, and the ones join across are streets. They are all numbered.

In the second pic you'll see all the areas. You will probably also notice that the streets of lower Manhattan ant Greenwich Village are not on the grid. You will also notice the street going diagonally across the whole map, that street is the famous Broadway.

Take a look at this short film to see the explanation as to why this is so!

Pic1 from here.
Pic2 from here.

Underground book blog

I hope to introduce you to some of the amazing blogs out there. Hopefully you'll find some of them interesting enough to follow, which will give you great insight into many aspects of the English speaking world.

The blog I'm introducing you to today, is called Underground New York Public Library.
The girl behind this blog takes pictures of people reading on the underground. At first, this may seem odd, maybe even boring. But it is actually quite interesting! Who reads the Bible or the Quran? Not always the kind of people you would expect! Maybe you like the style of someone and want to read what they are reading? Maybe that big, bearded man is reading Winnie the Pooh? You'd be surprised!

Shall I Compare Thee..

You are now introduced to Sonnet 18, and hopefully you learned something, I think you all did fantastic! I promised to post a video of it with music. Here is the guitarist of Pink Floyd, and the version he made for his wife. Enjoy!

Gender-neutral Toy Stores

I came across this article in The Guardian this summer, and I found it interesting. Whenever you walk into a regular toy store, you can immediately spot which direction to go just by looking at the colors. In the pink section you will find the girls' toys, and the boys' section will be darker, maybe dominated by blue. Some stores even divide the store into "boys" and "girls". Read this article and tell me what you think: is this a good way to avoid labeling toys as stereotypical "boys" and "girls"-stuff, or are we just fooling ourselves?

I have to admit, I would LOVE to see more girls like the one in the Lego commercial above, without the puffy pink dresses.

The article is found here.

Pic from here.

USA Common Sense

Just like we in Norway have created stereotypes of Norwegians, or even Europeans (the French are snobbish, the Italians flirty, the Scottish cheap etc), the Americans have stereotypes connected to the different States. Here you see a map with the American stereotypes. Which state do you think "fake boobs and oranges" is? If I hadn't seen it on the map I would be torn between two. Quite fun! Can you explain more? How do you think these came about? Which state is called Scandinavia for example, and why?

via this link.

Great Site!

Cheyenne and Oline came to me today and asked if I have any books they could borrow. This made me spend quite a lot of time in front of my bookshelves, as I put a bit of pride in recommending you the right books. I started exploring the web for recommendations, and came across this great web site:

http://www.goodreads.com

Here's how it works: You create a profile, you tell them what genres you like (young adult for example) and then you can rate the books you have read, and the site automatically recommend similar books. Isn't that great?? I have just started exploring this site, but something tells me this will be a long night. Sign up now, I think we even can create groups! My name username is "Siri".

The pic is from here, and is the London Book Maze, which is made from 250,000 books. 

Welcome Back!

Men Throwing Rocks With The Other Hand from Juan Etchegaray on Vimeo.

I really look forward to seeing you all tomorrow. We have such an exciting and intense year ahead of us, and I hope I am prepared to lead you through. I have thought a bit about this blog during summer, and started to wonder if I should try to find stuff more related to the topics we are dealing with in class. But I soon realized that it would take the fun out of it. So to prove that I will still post fun stuff, I am sharing this hilarious video of men throwing rocks with the other hand. I actually had to try this myself after watching. I am left-handed, and throwing with my right is almost impossible.

I will continue writing this blog, and if I find good stuff directly relevant: great! But most of all I want this to be a blog where you 1. read a bit of English, 2. maybe find something you will explore further, which makes you read even more English AND get new interests and ideas, 3. learn something.

Hopefully you can give me tips as well!
Get a good night's rest, tomorrow starts the most important but also the most interesting year so far.
BRING IT ON!